New government plans for recycling mean shops and manufacturers could face paying up to a BILLION pounds a year.

Currently, the figure sits at around £70million a year, but according to the National Audit Office; local authorities spent over £700million on collecting and sorting recycling in 2017.

This means that the number of companies that contributed to the costs could also rise from 2017’s total of around 7,000.

This brand new waste strategy could see a huge increase in contribution from an array of firms for recycling used packaging. Clearly, only a small fraction of the cost of collecting and processing around 11 million tonnes of waste produced annually is paid for.

Upping the bill has been in discussions between ministers for quite some time; in an aid to encourage better practice alongside reducing the burden on the taxpayer.

This strategy comes as part of a wider project which ultimately aims to crackdown on plastic waste; it’s due to be published later this month.